xUnit test patterns : refactoring test code / Gerard Meszaros, Addison-Wesley, 2007
If you are serious about unit testing then this book is for you. It is Hardcover, 850 pages. I like the list of ’smells’ which are clues if the test suite has problems. The examples are in Java, but no matter which language you use, you can profit from using this book.
Service-oriented modeling : service analysis, design, and architecture / Michael Bell, Wiley 2008
This book is for software architects.
Apache and Linux could not have been designed by this approach, but bank systems probably have to be designed this way.
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Safari, O’Reilly’s online book access, has lots to offer. It has lots of current tech books, it is searchable, and you can read books before they get to the stores. However, you have to read books on your computer, which may be inconvenient, or you have to print out chapters, which is really inconvenient. Oh, and Safari costs $20 or $40 per month. I discontinued my subscription to save money, then re-subscribed to search out a problem that I was having (in a threaded program in gnu c++, what are those large ‘arena’ anon mappings, that use relatively little resident memory, and why). Safari helped where Google had not. But I much prefer holding a book in my hands, and I have not visited Safari in a week. YMMV.
The library used to have a Safari shared license so any three people could use Safari vis the library site. The service was stopped recently because it was not getting used much. To bad.
C# 2008 for programmers / Paul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel, Prentice Hall, 2009
Here are 1000+ pages packed with good tutorial material on C#, ASP.NET, WCF, WPF, and Silverlight.
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Implementation patterns / Kent Beck, Addison-Wesley, 2008
This book is about design patterns, and the examples are in Java but the concepts apply to many languages. The book is based on the premise that good code matters. In 150 pages, it packs in topics that are vital to a programmer.
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Advanced NXT : the Da Vinci inventions book / Matthias Paul Scholz, Apress, 2007
First, a short biography of Leonardo da Vinci! Then plans to build 5 of his inventions using Lego NXT.
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Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web application construction kit / Ben Forta, Peachpit Press, 2008
If you are using ColdFusion, this looks like a useful book.
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Effective Java / Joshua Bloch, Addison-Wesley, 2008
“I sure wish I had this book ten years ago. Some might think that I don’t need any Java books, but I need this one.” — James Gosling, inventor of Java.
“This is a truly excellent book done by the guy who designed several of the better recent Java platform API’s (including the Collections API).” — James Clark, of XML fame.
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Dreamweaver CS3: the missing manual / David Sawyer McFarland, Pogue Press/O’Reilly, 2007.
With 1000 pages of text, and small pictures of dialogs every second page or so, this book might be the best way to learn Dreamweaver. No code examples! The book is not written by David Pogue, but his picture and bio are prominent on the back cover. The author deserves more credit for writing an excellent book.
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Enhancing a Dreamweaver CS3 web site with Flash Video / by David Karlins, Peachpit, 2008
Just 100 pages showing pictures of GUIs and telling where to click. You can add a video to your site without understanding how it works!
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